SEBASTIAN CANNINGS Graduated 2016, recent credits as Assistant Production Manager include La Strada UK tour, Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, Palace Theatre and In With A Bang, Hull City of Culture, as Production Manager at the Tricycle Theatre on The Mother and as Assistant Production Manager on Ben Hur. ‘Central gave me the knowledge and skill base that allowed me to start a career in Production Management. By experiencing all the Theatre Practice strands of the course in my first year, I gained a well-rounded knowledge and appreciation of how the theatrical industry works. The contacts I met, both tutors and fellow students, helped me to gain work both whilst at Central and as soon as I graduated. It was through a placement that I gained my first professional West End job on Harry Potter And The Cursed Child.’
YEAR 1 Developing basic stage management skills: for creating live performance, through a series of workshops and realised projects, including managing rehearsals and the performance, blocking and working with the cast and director, marking up, show calling, props sourcing and adapting, costume supervision and sewing, lighting, and sound and aspects of staging technology. Workshops focus on text analysis, group dynamics, communication and current legislation, including health and safety. In the final term you will undertake the role of Assistant Stage Manager on a realised production, working with students from the undergraduate Acting and other courses.
YEAR 2 Developing skills further through undertaking different roles: including Assistant and Deputy Stage Manager on a range of realised production projects from main house proscenium theatre shows to site-responsive fringe work. This is underpinned by sessions looking at more advanced aspects of stage management, including company management, score reading, pyrotechnics, firearms and stage blood effects, and event management. You may work on projects outside Central, including community theatre, immersive theatre and events and may operate sound and lighting on small-scale productions. You are assigned a professional mentor who will advise and guide you.
YEAR 3 Focus on professional development: roles are assigned individually based on strengths and interests. This will include at least one with significant managerial responsibilities on one of Central’s public productions and which may also be of a larger-scale or more challenging. This enables you to develop your skills further, negotiating with directors and designers, managing a team, managing a budget, and finding solutions to complex production challenges, working in a ‘real world’ context. You will research and organise a suitable placement with a professional company, encouraging you to build a network of contacts whilst exploring the areas of the entertainment industry in which you aspire
to work. You will prepare a portfolio and career plan, including a presentation to a panel of leading industry figures, who will offer ideas, suggestions and advice to support you on your chosen path.
PLACEMENTS AND PROFESSIONAL FOCUS The course enables you to build on the professional contacts you make throughout and to set up professional placements for the final year. Recent placements have included Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, Disney’s Aladdin, Wonder.land at the National Theatre, Don Quixote and Doctor Faustus with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Welcome Home Captain Fox! at the Donmar Warehouse, the Tricycle Theatre/Theatre Royal Bath’s production of The Mother, and at the Royal Opera House, Opera Holland Park, Gandini Juggling, Birmingham Royal Ballet and Wellfit Media, Hong Kong. The course has extensive links with the live performance industry on all scales in London and beyond, including Border Crossings, English National Opera (via an annual graduate internship), Donmar Warehouse, Tricycle Theatre and the Royal Court Theatre. Through project work, formal visits to theatres and regular close contact with professionals, including recent graduates, you will be well prepared to enter the live performance industry. You will work with professional Stage Managers either undertaking their role within Central, or as project supervisors and team mentors. There are potential opportunities for students to work with companies such as Parrot {in the} Tank, Shunt and Nutkhut on more unconventional immersive work and in non-traditional theatre making areas, such as street arts and outdoor theatre. This can include festivals such as London Mela, and companies Walk the Plank, The World Famous, Emergency Exit Arts and Kinetika.
RECENT VISITING STAFF Stage Management, Sophie Acreman, Marion Colwell, Jo Miles, Hannah Roy, Adam Tripp, Andy Shewan, Charlotte Padgham, Natasha Dubowski, George Cook. Production Management, Dennis
Charles, John Riddell, Tom Lee, Kaley Freeman. Technical Management, Jon Hare, Aidan Lesser. Sound, Jamie Flockton, Pete Eltringham. Lighting, Josh Gadsby. Directors, Dominic Rouse, Debbie Seymour. Prop Making, John Blunden. Working at height, Mark Mumford. Event Management, Simon Byford. Score Reading, Lisa Westerhout. Adobe Photoshop, Cate Blanchard. Pyrotechnics, Just FX. Firearms and stage blood, Rc-Annie.
BEYOND CENTRAL Graduate employment and career pathways include: Company Manager, Salisbury Playhouse; Disney’s Aladdin, Prince Edward Theatre. Assistant Company Manager, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Stage Manager, Guys And Dolls, Phoenix Theatre; Disney’s Aladdin, Prince Edward Theatre; Elizabeth, Royal Ballet; The Last Tango, UK tour; Liberian Girl, Royal Court Theatre; Complicite’s The Master And Margarita; Cirque du Soleil’s Zarkana, Radio City Music Hall, New York; Secret Cinema presents: Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back; Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games. Deputy Stage Manager, Yerma, Young Vic; Pericles, The Winter’s Tale, Shakespeare’s Globe; Bugsy Malone, Curve Theatre, Leicester; Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Donmar Warehouse; Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street, ENO; The Schoolmistress, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough; Maometto Secondo, Garsington Opera; The Monster In The Maze, LSO, Barbican; Jack And The Beanstalk, Watford Palace Theatre. Assistant Stage Manager, Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, Palace Theatre; Plays At The Garrick Season, Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company; Another World: Losing Our Children To Islamic State and Project Octagon, National Theatre; The Girls, UK tour; Toast, UK tour; When We Were Women, Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond; The Vote, Donmar Warehouse; Yerma, Young Vic; The Nutcracker, English National Ballet; Sunset Boulevard, ENO; Don Carlos, Grange Park Opera; Props Buyer, Happy Days, Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Hamburg. Award Events Producer, BAFTA. Production Manager, Imagination. Production Assistant, Square Deals Productions. Assistant Project Manager, Don’t Believe In Style, Hong Kong.
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